Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Climatology Of Tornadoes In Kansas, John P. Wasinger, Todd Moore

SACAD: John Heinrichs Scholarly and Creative Activity Days

Recent studies report changes to the climatology of tornadoes in the United States (US). Changes with the most supporting evidence include an increase in the intra- and inter-annual variability, increased concentration of tornadoes in bigger outbreaks, and a geographic shift of the densest tornado activity away from Tornado Alley in the Great Plains and toward the Great Lakes and Southeast regions of the US. Broad, national-level changes are valuable, but they can mask changes occurring at the state and sub-state levels where mitigation efforts are most effective. Kansas is of interest due to its reputation as a hotbed of tornado …

Northern Tornadoes Project. Annual Report 2021 V2, The Northern Tornadoes Project

Project Reports

The Northern Tornado Project’s third year of detecting, assessing and documenting tornadoes and other damaging wind events across Canada saw some interesting extremes – tornadoes in parts of both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts for the first time in decades, an apparent absence of tornadoes on the Prairies over the 60 days with the highest climatological frequency, a record number of significant (EF2+) tornadoes in Ontario, and massive downbursts in NE British Columbia, NW Alberta and SW Northwest Territories associated with an historic ‘heat dome’.

On top of this, the COVID-19 pandemic was still spreading across the country in waves. …

Examining Terrain Effects On Upstate New York Tornado Events Utilizing High-Resolution Model Simulations, Luke Lebel

Atmospheric & Environmental Sciences

The region at the intersection of the Mohawk and Hudson valleys of New York is characterized by complex terrain. It has been hypothesized that this complex terrain may have an impact on the development and evolution of severe convection in the region. Specifically, previous research has hypothesized that terrain-channeled flow in the Hudson and Mohawk valleys contributed to increased low-level wind shear and instability in the valleys during past severe weather outbreaks. However, a lack of observations in the region prevented this hypothesis from being robustly tested.

The goal of this study is to further examine this hypothesis and complement …

Tornado Fatalities: An In-Depth Look At Physical And Societal Influences, Heather Joann Key

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to model and determine significant predictors of tornado death index values, and to investigate these significant predictors and what makes people vulnerable to tornado fatalities through expert interviews. This study also provides an understanding of the study participant’s perceptions of their county’s vulnerability to tornado fatality and demonstrates a true integration of methods and fields by studying geographic, meteorological, and sociological phenomena by use of quantitative and qualitative methods. The study consists of two parts: 1) A quantitative exploration of variables hypothesized to predict Tornado Death Index (TDI) values, 2) A qualitative investigation to …